The closet in our foyer is (was) impossibly dark, so I mounted a fluorescent fixture behind the header inside the closet, and installed a limit switch that opens when the door is closed. Camille opens the door to get her … Continue reading
It’s like being a kid again – stacking up blocks!
More learning experiences. It turns out that mixing mortar is more delicate than I expected, If it is too sloppy (too much water), it will not support the block, and will squeeze out. If it is too stiff (not enough … Continue reading
The forms are in, and I hope to hell I measured properly for the rebar location…
My neighbor’s lot (to the west) is about three feet above ours, and I can tell by the way the plants are growing along the property line that his lot is slowly slumping into ours. The builder should have put … Continue reading
There sure was a party goin’ on in the house diagonally behind ours. It was loud – not rowdy loud, just loud because there were probably two hundred people jammed into the house and backyard. I hit the shower at … Continue reading
The title of this blog post sounds like the punch line to a bad joke about drugs. Another science experiment, of sorts. Our new driveway has a number of cracks running in multiple directions. I’ve filled them with a caulk … Continue reading
The first year at a new house is an exercise in patience, while you wait for the landscaping to mature in order to find out what kind of maintenance nightmare you bought. Apparently, the last owners just let things go … Continue reading
Camille just cannot live with the crappy kitchen sink we have, and truth be told, I am worried that the faucet is ready to fall apart at any moment, probably when we’re away for the weekend. HA! You might remember … Continue reading
I’ve commented to a number of people that I have discovered that some of the switches in our house are broken. I find this very odd – the house is only 15 years old, the switches are builder original Levitons, … Continue reading
Many new homes have “great rooms” that make typical molding and millwork look puny. There are larger variations of common sizes available at the big box home improvement stores (5 1/2″ baseboard to replace 3 1/2″ for example), but sometimes … Continue reading
Fitting Shelves into a curved space. Our new staircase is curved, so the understair storage area is also curved. It is off the kitchen, designed to be used as a pantry. So, how to put shelves in here… There must … Continue reading
We live in an earthquake zone that is in constant motion. As a result, I have adopted a habit of bolting all cabinets to the wall so that a small tremor cannot make them fall on top of someone passing … Continue reading
We’ve been here a full month already. How time flies when you don’t know what you’re doing! 😀 Here is Camille, trying to rehabilitate the kitchen last May. We hired a couple of housekeepers to help, and they spent ten … Continue reading
Brand new, out of the box, eight minutes of use. The glass just fell off